It's recommended that adults should try to be active every day and should complete at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise per week - this could include cycling or walking at a fast pace. Alternatively, you could complete 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise, which could include running or a game of football. You could split this up into easily manageable 30-minute workouts over 5 days of the week.

If your goal is to get leaner and not lose muscle in the process, then I’d recommend sticking to slow consistent fat loss and not try to rush it (that will just impact strength even more, which increases the potential for muscle loss). Keep doing what you’re doing, and take 1-2 week diet breaks when needed (go back up to maintenance or possibly a very slight surplus).
First, the bad news: Three-quarters of Americans have a "fat gene" associated with a 20 to 30 percent higher risk for obesity. But that doesn't mean you're destined to be heavy. A recent British review found that exercise can trump your genetics. Physically active people with the fat gene are 27 percent less likely to become obese than couch potatoes who have it. We're not talking about training for a triathlon; the active people got just one hour or more of moderate-to-vigorous exercise a week. Aim for the recommended five hours a week (three days of cardio and two days of strength training) and you'll rev your weight-loss results even more.
Wonderful! I hate cardio. I have created a caloric deficit of about 500 calories, so I think I’m just going to do about 30 min of cardio on the days I don’t weight train. I think being at the gym once a day (5 or 6 days a week) helps my motivation. I have a treadmill at home but I don’t feel the same on it as I do in the gym surrounded by other fitness minded people. Looking forward to the cardio articles! BTW, an article on correct form for some basic exercises would be great for us beginners as well!

Some of the weight loss articles out there these days are getting a little nutty. New scientific studies that shed light on how metabolism works are wonderful and valuable in their own right, but when findings get morphed into magical new “tips” for losing weight, something’s amiss. Some recent pieces in prestigious journals, which have sought to dispel the myths of weight loss and of the individual diets themselves, suggest that the medical community is also getting tired of the hype and the unfounded assumptions that permeate the public discussion.

“Even though a smart diet is key, exercise can help boost your body’s metabolism to shed fat. Through health care providers often recommend brisk walking or jogging, these exercises may not help you see the results you want. Instead, try interval training. Here’s how: While performing your usual walking or jogging routine, intersperse faster paces periodically throughout your workout. In other words, you may be walking at your normal pace for 2 minutes and then begin a slow jog or fast walk for 1 minute. After the faster speed, return to your slower speed and continue this alternation for 20 minutes. Research shows this type of exercise can stimulate metabolism, melt fat and push your fitness status to the next level.” — Dr. Sean M. Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, ATC/L, CSCS Owner and PT, Naples Personal Training, LLC

Studies find that people who eat cereal for breakfast every day are significantly less likely to be obese and have diabetes than those who don’t. They also consume more fiber and calcium—and less fat—than those who eat other breakfast foods. Make oatmeal, or pour out a high-fiber, low-sugar cereal like Total or Grape Nuts, and boost it up with these healthy cereal hacks.
The goal with BMI is to be what the National Institutes of Health considers "normal." The lowest risk for health conditions related to weight has been tied to a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 (labeled "normal weight"). Risks go up as a person climbs this BMI ladder, with numbers between 25 and 29.9 considered overweight, and BMIs of 30 or greater considered obese, according to the NIH.

Not much. When you go below 800 calories a day you body says "oh! oh! we need food and there's no food here." So it goes into "starvation mode and keeps all of the fat to sustain life." It uses just the bare minimum to keep your vital organs alive. So, it's not a good way to lose weight and you know you could die. It's a better idea to eat at least 800 calories a day. The smart way to lose weight is to take the number of pounds you want to weigh and multiply that number by ten. Like if you wanted to weigh 125 - you would eat 1250 calories each day.

Standing up taller can make you look 5 pounds slimmer, says Deborah L. Mullen, a certified strength and conditioning specialist in San Luis Obispo, CA. How can you make it a habit? Try Pilates. According to a 6-month pilot study of 18 chronic back pain sufferers, Pilates is one of the best ways to improve posture and strengthen your ab and back muscles. Jessica Chasity, Prevention’s senior fitness editor and a certified Pilates instructor, suggests two moves you can actually do while you’re still in bed that will set you straight for the day:
Recent studies have shown more and more people are adding oatmeal to their daily routine diet. Oatmeal is considered best when it comes to having something which is enriched with soluble fiber. Apart from soluble fiber, oatmeal is another great source of protein. Plus, oatmeal can induce the feeling of fullness for a long period of time. In other words, it can suppress appetite.
Those trans fats on your menu are hiding out in plain sight and sabotaging your lean belly plans every time you eat them. If a food product says it contains partially hydrogenated oils, you’re eating trans fat, which can increase your risk of heart disease, high cholesterol, and obesity with every bite. In fact, research conducted at Wake Forest University reveals that monkeys whose diets contained eight percent trans fat upped their body fat by 7.2 percent over a six-year study, while those who ate monounsaturated fat gained just a fraction of that amount. Instead of letting harmful trans fat take up space on your menu, fill up with the 20 Healthy Fats to Make You Thin.
There is some scientific legitimacy to today’s lower-carb diets: Large amounts of simple carbohydrates from white flour and added sugar can wreak havoc on your blood sugar and lead to weight gain. While avoiding sugar, white rice, and white flour, however, you should eat plenty of whole-grain breads and brown rice. One Harvard study of 74,000 women found that those who ate more than two daily servings of whole grains were 49 percent less likely to be overweight than those who ate the white stuff.
Workout for 60-70 minutes a day in total and stay hydrated. During your exercise, include a 5 minute warm-up to slowly rise your heart rate, like a slow jog with a slowly accelerating pace. After, do 60 minutes of exercise to keep the heart rate up, you could do 2-3 different exercises. Finally do a 5-minute cool down to lower your heart rate like a jog turned into a walk.
But the source of calories obviously matters for other reasons. One, says Katz, is that "the quality of calories is a major determinant of the quantity we ingest under real world conditions." First of all, no one overeats veggies, so on a practical level, that’s a non-issue. “But where the calories come from does matter in that they influence satiety,” he adds, and this is partly psychology and partly biology. In fact, the food industry has carved out a whole new area of food science to study the “bliss point,” in which foods are created to increase the amount it takes to feel satiated and full. On one hand, says Katz, “we have the 'bliss point' science to tell us that the food industry can process foods to increase the calories it takes to reach satisfaction. We have the reciprocal body of work, including the Harvard study of the ONQI, showing that 'more nutritious' means, among other things, the opportunity to fill up on fewer calories.”
Are you finding it difficult to fit into your little black number? Is belly fat giving you sleepless nights? If your answer is yes, you need to make some lifestyle changes to get the figure of your dreams. No doubt, belly fat looks aesthetically displeasing. It can assume serious proportions and affect long term health, if not curbed at the right time.

Talk about a catch-22: Doing something healthy, like eating a low-cal meal, can make you less likely to exercise and more likely to gorge yourself with food later on. This is because of a phenomenon scientists call licensing, which happens when we feel that we've earned the right to be self-indulgent. Most people have a tendency to want to balance things out, says Kathleen Vohs, PhD, an associate professor of marketing at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. So when we do one thing that's good for our health, which often requires exerting plenty of discipline and self-control, we like to follow it up with something that lets us indulge ourselves.

Squats are really great exercises for your buttocks and legs. Squat is a position in which you couch or sit with knees bent close to the heels with your thighs parallel to the floor. It is a full body work out that primarily targets hips, thighs and buttocks. If you find this exercise routine difficult then try the same sitting on a chair and standing up, now repeat this process a number of times to tone your body and provide some benefit to it.

The causal relationship between diets and weight gain can also be tested by studying people with an external motivation to lose weight. Boxers and wrestlers who diet to qualify for their weight classes presumably have no particular genetic predisposition toward obesity. Yet a 2006 study found that elite athletes who competed for Finland in such weight-conscious sports were three times more likely to be obese by age 60 than their peers who competed in other sports.

There are plenty of fun ways to get moving and exercise. The key is figuring out what you find fun and then going and doing it. Many find classes like cycling, Zumba, hip hop, step, boot camp to be great fun, while others find their fun hitting the trails, playing tennis, biking, swimming, or even just walking with their dog. Sometimes a personal trainer, a friend, or even an online program can make any format of fitness fun as well. Be open minded and try everything you can. You won't be disappointed.

Some antidepressant medications can cause weight gain, especially the older tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) such as Tryptizol, Saroten, and Clomipramine; as well as newer drugs such as Remeron (Mirtazapine). Lithium (for manic-depressive disorder) often causes weight gain. The most common antidepressants known as SSRI’s (for example Citalopram and Sertraline) usually don’t impact weight significantly. More on depression